Welcome to the Clinician Researcher podcast, where academic clinicians learn the skills
to build their own research program, whether or not they have a mentor.
As clinicians, we spend a decade or more as trainees learning to take care of patients.
When we finally start our careers, we want to build research programs, but then we find
that our years of clinical training did not adequately prepare us to lead our research
program.
Through no fault of our own, we struggle to find mentors, and when we can't, we quit.
However, clinicians hold the keys to the greatest research breakthroughs.
For this reason, the Clinician Researcher podcast exists to give academic clinicians
the tools to build their own research program, whether or not they have a mentor.
Now introducing your host, Toyosi Onwuemene.
Hello everyone.
Welcome to the Clinician Researcher podcast.
I'm your host, Toyosi Onwuemene, and it is such a pleasure to be here.
I am super excited about today's episode because we have a very, very, very special guest who's
going to talk to us about how to create writing structures to help you succeed as a clinician
researcher.
And so without further ado, I'm going to have her introduce herself.
Gia, please introduce yourself to the audience.
Hi, thank you so much for having me today.
And yes, I am Jia.
I am a physician researcher and a nephrologist in New York.
And I also started a company called PublishMD where I help clinicians publish research papers
and try to build their authority and also achieve the academic goals.
So I'm here to help you achieve that.
I love it, Gia.
So you're a nephrologist, you're a clinician researcher, and you help other people in getting
their research, moving their research forward as well.
So awesome.
I want to start from your journey because the clinician part of you and the part of
you that's the nephrologist makes sense, right?
It's the trip we all did to get to the specialty that we got to.
But at what point did you make that transition from clinician as a nephrologist into a research
researcher?
How did that happen for you?
So yeah, I was trained in Malaysia and in Ireland and where a lot of emphasis was on
clinical work.
And when I joined residency, then in the program, we had a lot of quality improvement projects
assigned to us where each year, the second year will meet the first and third year, we'll
do a group project.
And because of that, that exposure, it made me feel interested about asking questions,
asking questions to solve clinical problems, not just one-on-one basis, but for a bigger
impact.
But these projects, even though they were meaningful, they were never published because
it was usually not good enough.
And I decided that I needed more training.
And when I did my fellowship, I took a research fellowship and did my master's in clinical
epidemiology.
And then I thought that was enough.
Throughout the three years I did my master's, my fellowship, when I graduated with my master's,
all the research done, I had zero publication.
And when you look up trying to do a research position, they don't hire a researcher who
can't publish their science.
And so it was a lot of clinical job offer, but I got lucky actually that somebody, my
current institution invested in me and they said, you know what, I'm going to give you
three years, 50% protected time just to jumpstart, improve yourself.
And because there was my second chance, I told myself, I'm not going to do the same
thing as before.
I'm going to do everything different to make sure I can prove myself that they invested
the right person.
And so within two years, that was a time where there was a mindset shift, that was a major
change in myself, where a lot of things happened.
Writing was actually the moment I could not finish a project, I can't publish a paper.
So that was the first investment.
Once I did that, then it snowballed and then I started writing grants and got NIH funding.
So that's where the snowball happened and now I'm really into research.
That's super awesome.
I hear so many things in the things you're saying.
So number one, you weren't satisfied with your role as a clinician.
You saw that there were gaps that needed to be filled and you decided that you wanted
to be one of those people to fill those gaps.
And I think that you echo the sentiments of many clinicians who are like, this is not
enough.
We're not helping patients.
There's more opportunity here.
And so you took a step further and you did the training, but you didn't have enough training.
And then when you got to the place where you're looking for jobs, you were finding out that
you're not having published actually was working against you.
And what's interesting is that you did have this opportunity to do a 50% protected time
position, but you really took the initiative and you made a substantial investment in yourself
to make this research and the research writing piece work out.
And I want to ask, what did that investment look like if you don't mind sharing?
Yeah.
So investment, sometimes we only think about money, but it was time, money, energy, all
three things together.
And it means that I am not working 40 hours, 40 hour weeks.
I'm working 80 hour weeks.
The extra 40 outside of my clinical work is about improving my writing.
So I took courses, any courses I could land my hand off, let my get access to, I will
always join coaching calls.
Every time they ask for, Oh, bring feedback.
I will always bring.
Additionally, I will also do practice.
I will do deliberate practice on my own writing.
People will say, Oh, how do you practice writing?
I actually have like techniques.
I found a book and I was practicing, I'm doing copywork just to download the style of writing.
And these additional things I was doing at the site, because I felt that writing was
a core research skill because you can have the data.
But if you can't transform the data into a compelling story, all your research, three
years worth of work is useless.
So I felt that if I just need to put the energy into this piece, this big piece, you know,
that was the first thing I could think of.
There were other pieces, but I didn't want to be distracted.
Let me get paper out.
So that was what I started with.
Absolutely.
Thank you for sharing that.
This idea of time, money, and energy.
It's not just money.
You always think, Oh, it's money.
And sometimes we shy away from that, but it is the time, it is the energy.
And what you're seeing is you work extra hard.
You didn't say, well, my work week is a 40 hour work week.
I'm done.
But you said, this is the extra training that I need.
And you made an investment to do it.
And it sounds like your hard work paid off and you have all these publications now behind
you and you're actually even teaching people how to publish.
And so I want to just talk about that.
How is it that you went from finishing these programs where you hadn't published anything
to now where you are actually showing people how to succeed in publishing?
How did that happen?
So it is through these programs, I realized that technique is one thing.
It's like how to write it.
I realized the biggest problem is the mindset in how you structure the time.
So that was actually the biggest piece.
Coming from a clinician black background, it meant that you have a lot of free time.
When you have free time, if you don't structure the time, you are going to end up checking
epic inbox.
You can check email.
You spend too much time speaking on a phone with a patient for an hour, but with no real
progress.
And so there was a mindset shift, I would say, is embracing myself as a professional
writer.
A professional researcher is a professional writer.
I'm being paid to publish my research work.
So I need to take writing seriously.
So I start writing during work hours.
It has to be daily.
I treat that as a clinic.
Like if it's a clinic, I will always show up for my patient.
I'm never late.
I never cancel on them.
So I treat my writing sessions as clinic appointment.
So once I did that, I realized, oh, it's actually not just the writing.
I need to move the needle every time.
And as I talk to many people, as a coach people, that is actually the major thing.
They always say they have no time.
But when you break down what they do, oh, they haven't even put in the time to write.
They're hoping to find a sliver of time.
They hope to find inspiration.
But when you're a professional, you don't wait for inspiration.
You do the work.
So I think that big mindset shift was key in my success.
And when I talk to people, I realize that's the biggest thing.
That's really great.
I love what you're talking about.
It's not just the writing because we're writers.
We're all writing, right?
We're at a writing clinic notes all the time.
But it's the process of writing, the process of creating space for your writing and creating
space to move your work forward.
And without that space, the work doesn't move forward.
And so I love the way you talk about creating structures around your writing and making
sure that you're not waiting for inspiration, but you're actually creating space to be working
so inspiration can hit you while you're in progress.
I wonder if you can speak to what does that writing structure look like for you?
And how does someone who's never had a writing structure move from no writing structure into
writing structure?
The two things first is there must be a commitment.
First mindset is always must be there.
You must have a commitment.
You must not give excuses.
We you know, before I went into 50 percent, I was operating.
I was still working.
I tried to squeeze my clinical work 50 percent.
I tried to squeeze it into 25.
So I am pretending I'm working as a 75 percent research.
I put so much research work in that same amount of time.
And in the commitment to putting research as the first thing, that is important commitment.
Second you need to show up.
Show up for the sessions that you have scheduled for.
Number third thing is consistency.
So I am I'm a believer in if you if it's something important enough, you should do it every day
because it just builds the momentum.
It just builds a habit.
And when you do it every day, it just means you don't have to think you don't have to
say, oh, should I write today?
Should I not write today?
He's like, OK, it's 10 a.m.
It's my writing time.
I don't have to make a decision.
It's my time to do it.
So at the beginning, put artificial structures if you need get accountability buddies if
you need.
But I would say commitment first, show up in consistency.
These are the three things we need in place as a recipe.
Then you can start building a habit.
Thank you, Jia.
Now, one of the things I hear is really and you talked about this with the mindset shift
where clinicians at least primarily that was our is our training.
And so the clinical things tend to pull us a lot.
And so in order for us to move to the space of doing research fully, we have to take on
a different identity as writers, as professional writers.
And it has to be part of our daytime job.
It's not the kind of thing we're doing in the background where where there's nobody
and nobody's looking.
It's really part of what we do actively.
And so I wonder what's the biggest resistance that you encounter in your clients when you're
trying to get them to set these structures into place and also have this mindset shift?
I'm so glad you asked this question.
I given this advice so many times and the number one objection, they will always say,
but my patients need I need to fit the patient in, you know, a few bad my patient.
I came in to become a doctor.
I can't say no to my patient.
And in telling the then I was say this.
Yeah, exactly.
Your patients come first.
When you sit down and write a paper and publish your science, you are helping not just one
patient.
You're helping a thousand patients, your future patients.
That's the impact.
So don't think that you are saying no to one patient.
You're actually saying no to a thousand patients when you are saying no to your brain.
So I think not everybody buys that.
But I think you need to buy that as a researcher.
You go into research for impact, not just one.
We do love the one on one.
That's where we still keep on the clinical work.
But we want to do more.
Researchers want to do more impact and move science forward and having this mindset should
sit down.
I am helping my thousands of patients who are in the future.
That is the biggest mindset.
I love it.
And also, I think one of the things you point to is that we're not here just to dabble a
little bit in research.
Like, I'll just do a project.
Let's do a project there.
We're really leading change because the reason we've gone into research is because we see
gaps.
If clinical care was perfect, then we wouldn't even need to be doing research.
But we're doing research because we see gaps.
And so in a sense, it's an obligation, having found answers to some of those gaps, to let
other people know so that people can change clinical practice.
So in a sense, it's an obligation not just to the patients before us, but really, yes,
as you say, future patients.
And it's a different way of thinking, but definitely an important mindset shift to have.
I wonder for you, as you are now going from coaching clients and really helping people
move their research forward, who are the clients who've had the biggest successes and why?
So the biggest successes are those who show up.
Those who show up are calls.
Those who go through the program, like the digital course, some people will buy, but
they never respond to emails anymore.
And then you see them, they have never logged in.
You buy it.
But some people believe that just because they buy something, they get results.
You actually need to go in and do the work.
And research is not easy.
And you actually need to put in the work.
Some reality check there.
People are hoping to join the program and get easily fixed, but the jump between a clinician
to researcher, the skill set is so different that there are so many layers and so many
pieces you need to build.
And it's not like you just need one piece.
You need the threshold of, I need these six skills together.
Then I can publish a paper.
And those who don't show up usually are because, oh, I only did one piece and I don't see a
result.
But the people who get success are, they fill in the writing piece.
They also learn the research, they know how to ask the research question.
They learn the process of doing everything.
They complete the project.
That's also important.
So these are the few components that make somebody successful.
Thank you for sharing that.
One of the things that brings to mind is when you think about the people that we are competing
against, so to speak, when we submit for funding, they're PhDs who've been doing research for
years and years.
And they've not just been doing research on the side, they've been fully doing research
as part of their whole experience.
And so as you talk about, it's a whole shift.
There's a whole different skill set that's needed.
And it really does take time and investment.
And I wonder if the challenges people may experience has to do with, well, I haven't
created the time and the structures to move this forward.
But if I just pay for a program, it's going to fix everything.
And as you said, it's like making the investment is one thing, but that's just an investment
of money.
Time is necessary as well.
And that's the theory as well.
So it's a whole package.
Yeah, it's a whole package.
Yeah.
What about people who say, well, I have a great mentor.
I don't need this.
What would you say to them?
I love this question because let me share a quick story.
So when I was writing my grant, my research grant, I have excellent mentors.
I have one who is in the right space and a different institution.
I have one who's so...
I have like a whole team of amazing mentors to guide me.
And yet I paid for a $5,000 bootcamp that lasted only for eight weeks to write my research
grant.
And my reasoning, my reasoning was they are good, but I'm not good enough.
So for them to help me, they need to tip...
I want to go from good to great or great to extraordinary.
I want my grant application to be excellent.
But if I'm only like okay average, my mentor can only pull me up to good and that's good.
So I felt that I needed to bring myself to great so that they can bring my application
from great to extraordinary because I don't want to waste time.
I want to submit the best grant I have in the very first try so that I can get it.
You know, that's my goal.
I hear people say, oh, you know, key grants, you get it in the second or third try.
I don't want to waste time.
I want to go for the big kill.
I want to get it first time.
And because of that mindset, I do things differently.
I need to push everything.
I need to optimize every part as I could.
Mentor is one of them.
My own skill is another one of them.
And so because of that two-parry, I did get my grant the first time around.
And so I felt that the $5,000 was worth the money because, you know, $5,000 to get a million
dollars, that's a huge ROI if you think about it that way.
No, that's super awesome, Jia.
And it's so funny.
It's like, wait a minute, you paid $5,000?
What?
What about people who are like, well, if my institution is not going to pay it, why should
I pay it?
What do you have to say about that?
Great question.
So when you pay for programs yourself, you keep the skill.
It doesn't matter who pays for it, but at the end, who comes up with the skill?
I take it back.
When I pay for it myself, it means I believe in myself.
When I believe in myself, the most important thing, we have to be sold on ourselves.
If our programs are not sold on us and not willing to pay for us, we have to be sold
on ourselves, on our goals, on our ambition that we are willing to pay for ourselves.
If we can do it, then we can achieve it.
But if we are not even sold, then if nobody's going to pay, that means you're not going
to invest in yourself.
No, I'm going to do whatever I need to get there.
So yeah, so to me, and at the end, you hold the skill.
It doesn't matter who paid for it.
At the end, you learn through this and you keep the skill and you can bring your skill
wherever at the institution, wherever you go.
Thank you for speaking to that, Gia.
I think one of the things that's so important and I think can be challenging for us because
as clinicians, we've gone through this training where people tell us, this is what you're
supposed to do and this is what you end up with.
This is what you're supposed to do.
This is what you end up with.
When we start our faculty careers, we are leading our own careers.
But sometimes that transition doesn't happen for people and they're still very much like,
well, what do you want me to do?
How do you want me to be?
But really what happens when you decide, wait a minute, I'm doing this for me.
This is what I want to succeed in for myself.
Then you don't wait for someone to say, oh, I might be able to give you a couple of thousand
dollars or I don't really think that program is for you.
You're making decisions because you're the one who's going to benefit.
I love the way you put that.
It's like, this is for me.
And at the end, I get to keep the skills and these skills matter to me because I'm going
to do this again and again, and I'm going to coach other people to do it.
And so of course, make the investment.
And so I really appreciate that you shared that because even for me, when I first started,
there was this sense of like, well, okay, if they don't feel like I need it, maybe I
don't need it, but it's not for them.
It's for me.
I wonder if there's anything else you want to add to that.
No, no, absolutely.
It's not for them.
It's for me.
They may want to invest in you, but you have to be the person who really needs to invest
it is yourself.
You need to be invested in yourself.
Absolutely.
So Gia, you know, it's funny.
I feel like with all of your, all you've been saying, it's almost like, well, that's so
easy for Gia.
She's clearly sailed through life.
I want you to speak to the challenges you've experienced along the way first for yourself
in making that transition and also as someone who's now coaching other people and making
that transition.
Yeah, I think my biggest one, the biggest obstacle was when I finished my fellowship
and couldn't find a proper job, a research job, right?
I was hoping my institution would keep me as faculty, but I could sense that they were
not willing to keep me because I don't have anything to show for.
So that was one.
Even with when I first joined the faculty, I was worried, what if I can't, you know,
three years, what if I can't get any publication?
What if I can't get grants?
So these were also obstacles I had.
I think finally for the coaching clients, the other obstacles I see are the misaligned
incentives that we do see in the system, not just personal, where you were told that you
need to help with papers, but you're not given the time or the space to do scholarly activity.
And then, you know, anything, they keep putting patients, more service time on the surface.
They say, oh yeah, we promote people to become associate professor, but there's no time.
Having said that, we have to accept what we have in that situation.
You either get out of it or you take charge.
You know, if you can't change it, if you can't change your surrounding, you change yourself.
So see what you can do to get out of the situation.
And one final thing I would say as well is clinicians sometimes forget what the true
metric is to be a researcher.
The real metric is publication in grant funding.
If you don't get that, it doesn't matter how good your teaching is, it doesn't matter
how good your evaluations are.
If your institution's metric for academia or promotion is publication, you need to know
the rules of the game.
And sometimes people don't want to look at that.
They ignore it.
And then five years later, they realize that, oh, I did not reach my metric.
And so what you have nothing to show for.
So that is kind of also another barrier, not knowing the rules of the game.
You know, when you're joining any game, you need to know how do you score, what the rules
are.
Yeah.
I love that.
I have to, you know, it reminds me of something I hear often.
People say, well, we want you to be a team player.
And you know, usually I have to say, I feel like that's often said of women who are sometimes
not given enough resources and they're like, just be a team player, just accept what you're
given.
And I love it because it's like, what is the game we're playing?
And how do we know when we win?
It's so important to ask that question, what is the game?
Because sometimes being a team player means, well, you let the other people who we've selected
out to be successful win, and then you support them.
And if it's fine, that's what you want to do.
But if really what you're doing is leading your own research and leading your research
program, then you want to make sure that you're playing a game that makes sense for you.
And then at the end you win and you know when you win.
And so I love where you started, where you were like, when you were first looking for
a job, it wasn't the job you wanted.
At least you didn't find the job that really supported you as a clinician researcher.
And you went looking for what that job would be.
And I appreciate the advice you give where it's like, well, you have a choice.
You may not, you can't control your institution and whether they choose to support you or
not, but you can choose how you respond to it.
Whether you're going to stay at the institution and find other ways to support yourself, or
you're going to choose a different institution that actually provides you the support that
you need.
And so what I hear you saying is that we have agency, we are in charge of our careers, we
are leading our careers.
And just because other people say no to us doesn't mean we should say no to ourselves.
Absolutely.
I want to riff on your saying about team player too, because that's such a great point.
How our division works.
When I do research, I'm being a team player, because how we view our division is one person
does oncology, one person does stone, and we all have our own roles to bring the whole
division up.
So my role was actually to be a researcher so that we can bring up the prestige.
We can bring up.
So when I say no to clinic patients, when I say, I know I can't do so much service time
because I need to get grants.
I need to get, it builds up the prestige and builds up the publication of the numbers of
the division.
I am being a team player.
So we can't always think about team player being just do the things equally, but what
are we doing as our role?
What is our intended role as a true team player?
I love it.
I want to speak more to that because it's like, if we think about, let's say a game
of basketball and I don't even really play basketball.
So it's not me, but there are people whose job it is to defend and their job is a little
bit different from those whose job it is to score.
So that for the people who are defending to say, well, we're going to leave our defending
and go do this work.
They're not going to do it as well.
And so for us too, it's that, well, if this is the work we've been brought on to do, if
this is the work we want to do, we've really got to succeed well.
And so when somebody says, I didn't see as many patients as I did, you have to take a
step back and say, what is it that I'm uniquely qualified to do?
And am I doing that?
Or am I doing something that somebody else actually could do for me?
Somebody else could easily do and take my place.
And I think that's really important because in your field, there are not many researchers
that are moving the work that you're moving forward.
And I bet at your institution, if you stopped your program of research, there are not many
people who could step in and just take over.
And so it's important for us to recognize the value we bring and to protect that value.
Yes.
And I love the basketball analogy.
I never even thought of it.
Like, yeah, the person who shoots, the person who defends, they all have to feel the weight.
Absolutely.
I feel like you've just shared so many wonderful nuggets of wisdom.
And I wonder if there's a clinician right now who's sitting there saying, well, no one's
supporting me, no one's providing resources for me.
I really want to succeed as a clinician researcher or as a physician scientist.
What advice would you have for them?
My first advice would be think about the why.
Like why you want to go into research in the first place?
Is it just you want a pre-publication here and there?
Really, I think if you want to really do research, you have to think about impact.
Who am I going to change?
What is it?
It doesn't matter how.
In fact, you should be thinking big.
The bigger you think, the easier it is for you to overcome the obstacles.
Because if your goal is so small, every small obstacle will get in the way.
But if your goal is so huge, it needs to be able to bulldoze the obstacles.
Right?
Oh, people got rejected.
But my goal is so big, I can work through this.
So your goal is just, I just want to maybe get one or two publications.
All right.
Oh, well.
So you need to have this huge goal.
And it has to be so deep.
You truly believe in yourself.
Once you do that, then you can work through all the obstacles.
Because research is not to your career.
We're talking about 30-year career.
We are trying to move to science.
You're trying to help patients in thousands.
Thank you, Jia.
I love the way you put it.
It's about what impact do you want to have?
I think as clinicians, we're very big on just helping patients be better, helping patients
manage their disease, or if possible, get a cure from their disease.
And so when we go into research, we have a big picture of the kind of change we want
to move forward.
And in a sense, there's an obligation to that future goal.
If you can get there, think about how many patients, how many lives you'll transform
when we're here and beyond the grave.
Our impact continues whether we're here or not.
And if it's so big, and it is big for so many of us, then that's the goal we keep in front
of us.
And we don't say, oh, there's a little bit of an obstacle here.
We say, no, if I accomplish this thing that I want to do, it's going to be so impactful.
It's going to be so awesome.
I'm going to look back on my career, and I'm going to be so excited that I made the investment,
that I made the sacrifice.
And so absolutely, I love that you put it that way.
It's like, think about your impact.
And it does matter.
It matters that we are aligned with maximizing our value in achieving the impact that we
came to achieve.
No, thank you.
I really appreciate your coming on the show and talking to our audience.
And I just feel like you just shared so many great insights.
And I want to really thank you for being on the show.
Oh, my pleasure.
It is so good talking to you, because I feel like nobody's listening to me, nobody understands.
And you get it, because you and I have transitioned from recognition to research site and have
seen the struggles and the obstacles.
But we did not forget that the whole point of doing this is for impact.
So I really feel like this is a message we all need to be talking about.
Absolutely.
Thank you, Jia.
And hey, for those of you who are listening, if you've heard this podcast episode and you're
like, somebody else needs to hear this, I want to ask you, I want to invite you to share
this episode with as many people as possible who need this inspiration that comes from
Jia today.
And if you're a mentor and you're like, well, one mentee or two may benefit from hearing
this, please definitely share with them, because there are so many clinicians who have a desire
to make great impact, and they don't know the first place to start.
Or they settled into a clinical career that's not really fulfilling them because they're
not doing the research piece.
So please share this podcast episode with someone else today so that their lives can
be transformed as well.
All right.
It's been such a pleasure talking to you all today.
I want to thank you for listening, and I look forward to talking with you again next time.
Take care.
Thanks for listening to this episode of the Clinician Researcher Podcast, where academic
clinicians learn the skills to build their own research program, whether or not they
have a mentor.
If you found the information in this episode to be helpful, don't keep it all to yourself.
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